Tom Maciejewski

for Berkeley Heights

Berkeley Heights Uses Legal Suppression to Deprive Public of Its Rightful Referendum Say on Debt and Costly Non-Essential Spending.

March 19, 2017

The New
Jersey Constitution recognizes that there is a particularly strong
need for public participation, in the form of a referendum, in a
legislative decision to incur indebtedness. Mayor Robert
Woodruff and Councilmembers Jeanne Kingsley, Marc Faecher,Michael
D’Aquila, Craig Pastore, Peter Bavoso and Manny Couto
are going to great lengths to restrictively ignore the
public’s wishes regarding the incurring of a huge unnecessary
debt.

While it
may be beneficial for the town to take small reasonable steps to
update and/or expand government buildings, there are few in this
town who accept the autocratic rule of Mayor Robert Woodruff and
Councilmembers Jeanne Kingsley, Marc Faecher,Michael
D’Aquila, Craig Pastore, Peter Bavoso and Manny Couto who are
delivering huge additional costs, and $28,000,000 in debt, without
increasing services. Now, the Mayor and Council seek to disinherit
residents of a say regarding their expensive construction folly
knowing full well that this debt-fueled “redevelopment”
plan would be dead on arrival in the court of public
opinion.

For 4
years, Berkeley Heights residents have been speaking out against
“The Swap” and its extravagant, non-essential
$28,000,000 municipal castle. Now that Berkeley Heights residents
have sought to end the unnecessary tax increase, through popular
vote in a Faulkner Act Referendum (to repeal Ordinance 4-2017), the
backroom drafted the Township Attorney to intervene.

They want
to sideline the expressed need for a referendum to a courtroom
– a costly, lengthy process for the public to endure.

Instead
of imposing “legal” restrictions, we ask instead that
the public’s right to decide on debt be welcomed and allowed.
Let democracy decide debt-fueled taxation.

We
anticipated this legal suppression. On February 27, the
Berkeley Heights Petitioners requested Township Clerk Ana Minkov to
properly perform her independent legal duties Clerk without being
improperly influenced by any political interference orchestrated by
the Berkeley Heights Mayor and Council through its Township
Attorney operating “in the backroom”. In a Faulkner
Referendum statute, there is no role for the Township Attorney
until the matter comes before the Council. The Township
Attorney knows to instead test the validity of his disputed claims
in the proper legal forum, before a Judge, at the proper
time.

But this
Township Attorney does not fight for you, for he seeks to add costs
to the Faulkner Petitioners and a non-essential debt burden to you
by blocking a call for public approval vote.

Whatever
claims Mayor Woodruff and the Town Council may have about needing a
new municipal building has been overshadowed by the cost and the
extreme tactics of redevelopment law that quashes public discussion
and dissent. Blowout costs of over $300,000.00 have already been
incurred to avoid public scrutiny.

When the
planner was asked how the plan was proposed and if alternative
approaches were looked at, he replied that the Mayor and Council
gave them what was needed for the building and he provided a single
plan based on those requirements.

There is
little benefit to doing this project and redevelopment law was
chosen to limit your voice. It’s time for Mayor Woodruff and
the Council to step aside and let the public decide.